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Wednesday, September 17, 2014

I do many things well, but cleaning house is not one of them. We’ve always found our house cleaners through word of mouth, though trying to ask around and then schedule someone who already has a mostly full schedule can be difficult. And there’s the awkward walk-through, when they come to your house, poke around and give you a price. But the price may change after they clean once or twice to see if it’s more work than they thought. Or maybe they charge by the hour, but you don’t know how quickly they work, so the price is open-ended.

I found out about Maidologie, a company that recently started up in the Bay Area. It was co-founded by a Cal grad who was sick of using a rotating group of sub-par cleaners in her own apartment. She decided to start a cleaning service that paid its cleaners a decent wage, used green products and streamlined the booking process for customers.

What she came up with is a transparent system focusing on three areas to make it better than other cleaning services:

1. Flat rate pricing – No visits to work out a price – what you see on the website is what you pay (though you can get various discounts – read at the bottom). And they offer some add-on services as well, like refrigerator cleaning, oven cleaning, blinds, etc. They charge by the number of bedrooms, i.e. a 3 bedroom home/apartment would be $158 no matter the square footage. This is what they clean for that price.

2. Online booking – it takes only 60 seconds. You can choose your date and time slot, booking online at your convenience.

3. 200% Guarantee - If you're not happy with their first cleaning, they’ll send their cleaners out for a second one at no cost. If you’re still not happy, they’ll give you a full refund.

Locations: Maidologie offers their service in San Francisco, the Peninsula, the South Bay, the East Bay and North Bay. Yes, the entire Bay Area.

Who are the cleaners? Maidologie insures and bonds the cleaners as well as doing a criminal background check. If you have regular cleanings, they will book the same cleaners each time, so you have consistency. Even if you only book occasionally, they’ll try to schedule the same person. They hire experienced, professional cleaners.

Products: The Maidologie cleaners will bring their own green cleaning products. If you want them to use your products, just tell them.

Regular visits and discounts: You can set up a one-time cleaning, or schedule regular visits on the payment page. They have a “frequency” section, with a 5-15% discount based on frequency.

You can use the code FRISCOKIDS at checkout and get 10% off your first cleaning through October 31, 2014.

Gift cards: They also offer gift cards, so if you’re looking for a helpful gift for your friend who had a baby, or a someone going through medical treatment, just give them a cleaning gift card which is easy for them to schedule at their convenience.

Bitcoin: Yes, they accept it!

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Maidologie. I have not tried their services, but I really like their concept and have been impressed with the founder’s responsiveness and interest in making this a great customer experience.

1 comment:

My favorite parts of your article are about seeing the services that this maid service provides. Additionally, seeing that I can actually look and see when they are available and sign up for a specific time is awesome. That can help me know when I will be home or not. It almost always seems that I never can never find an agreeable time to meet, or that I miss them completely when I had scheduled an appointment.http://www.mcmaid.com/house-cleaning